“Satire's nature is to be one-sided, contemptuous of ambiguity, and so unfairly selective as to find in the purity of ridicule an inarguable moral truth.”
― E.L. Doctorow

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

What We're Reading

Compiled by the
editors of HoseMaster of Wine™

WINE SPECTATOR:Matt Kramer insightfully equates what he does for Wine Spectator with blogging in a column entitled, “Phoning It In.”
“I, basically, rehash thoughts I’ve expressed over the years, make sure and
format it for a lot of paragraphs to fill my allotted space, and, BANG, hit
Publish. Only I get paid! And I have the next four years of columns already
recycled. Truth be known, I invented blogging.”James Laube writes a touching confessional about his secret addiction to
sulfites. “I knew I was in trouble,” he writes, “when I snorted them from Helen
Turley’s navel.” Tim Fish ponders how twelve bottles became a case.

JAMIE GOODE:On being notified that his blog had won the essentially worthless Wine
Blog Award for Best Overall Wine Blog, Jamie’s reaction is clear. “I’m not a
bloody blogger.” Goode asserts that he is, in fact, an “authentic” wine
blogger. “The only bloggers worth reading are authentic bloggers. Too many
people waste their time on bloggers who are clearly manipulated and unnatural,
and many of whom seem to be at the keyboard manipulating themselves.” Now
there’s an idea.

WALL STREET JOURNAL:A fascinating article by Jay McInerney about
the current fad among very wealthy people to compete for who has the biggest
collection of fraudulent wines. “Ever since the Dr. Conti scandal revealed that
many very wealthy collectors had cellars full of counterfeit bottles, there’s
been a competition to see who has the most. You have to remember, these are
people who celebrate hair plugs and fake tits.” At a recent vertical tasting of
every vintage of Chateau Petrus at Warren Buffett’s house, McInerney tastes the
“greatest wine of my life”—the ’47 Petrus, which turns out to be ’78 Silver Oak
blended with Red Bull. “It embarrassed the ’37 La Landonne.” Lettie Teague
waxes poetic about whole cluster press. “They published my first book.”

FERMENTATION:Tom Wark writes a long, improvised, vaguely factual post about what the
wine industry needs to turn itself around in a sluggish economy. “1. Don’t look
back, look forward. Or, at the very least, walk backwards and look over your
shoulder. 2. Be a visionary. The greatest names in wine were visionaries You
should be one. Where are the new visionaries coming from? I’d say the new
visionaries are already here, but we can’t see them. Unless you focus just to
the right of one and then you can see one, like he’s a star, or something dead
on your windshield. 3. Mount a campaign against the Three Tier System and then
sell wine by advertising on my blog. It’s
only by implementing these three points that the wine business will recover.”

WINE ENTHUSIAST: Steve Heimoff has a long piece
about “Where Winemakers Get Their Haircuts.” “At least in St.
Helena,” he writes, “it’s all about Jim Barbour.” He also
observes, “If you swept up all the clippings from a single month from the Sonoma barbers most often
patronized by our finest winemakers, why, you could have a shirt just like the
one I’m wearing now.” Paul Gregutt interviews Washington winemakers about the latest
craze—winery ferrets. One winemaker remarks, “They’re small and furry, like Jon
Bonné.” Paul wanders out of his territory to visit the furry critter at Buehler
Vineyards in Napa
Valley, only, as it turns
out, it’s Buehler’s Ferret’s Day Off. Roger Voss travels to the Jura and
forgets why he went there.

ON THE WINE TRAIL IN ITALY:Alfonso Cevola chides young sommeliers who
“only buy wines that will sell, a shortsighted strategy that foolishly leaves
out most of my portfolio.” He remembers a time, early in his career, when he
was asked if he wanted Vietti. “Only alla Bolognese,” he responds. And somehow
Dante is involved, it’s pretty hard to figure out how.

BON APPETIT: The annual Thanksgiving issue
focuses on the wines of Turkey.
“What could be more engaging than serving a bottle of vintage Öküzgözü? Though,
in a pinch, you could substitute Robitussin. We’re pretty sure the Pilgrims
drank Musket-det.” Also, a stunning seven-page pictorial on how to open a wine
bottle with simple household objects—a plunger, a spatula or your grandparent
with dementia. Finally, a Q and A with Angela Lansbury, as hip as Bon Appetit gets, on how to win a Tony
award pissed on Cribari.

CONNOISSEURS’ GUIDE:Charlie Olken writes about how much he likes
Steve Heimoff’s new winemaker hair shirt. “Do they make one where the sleeves
have Puffs?” Stephen Eliot explains blind tasting and why they use
Connoisseurs’ Guide Dogs.

18 comments:

"Öküzgözü" I'm impressed merely by the plethora of umlauts involved here. It's incredibly intimidating, which means it must sell like crazy since that report awhile back said wines sell more when you can't pronounce the name or know what the name means.

Wow, Marcia, you're never first! Nice going. You might also be the last, the way things go these days.

"Where Winemakers Get Their Haircuts" really does sound like an actual article from Wine Enthusiast, which is what made me laugh. And I rarely make me laugh. No photos, though I think you can find one in the J. Crew catalog. Their new "Crew Cut" shirt. Or something like that.

"A fascinating article by Jay McInerney"?! I think you might be pulling our leg on that one there mister. Did make me laugh, seeing the words fascinating and Jay McInerney in the same sentence. You make me giggle and I adore you for it!

As always this bit is laugh out loud funny (a bad thing in the office)! When you were nominated for a Poodle, I did a tribute bit on my blog and took a stab at doing one of these. Going in I thought it would be fairly easy but soon discovered how difficult it is to write something funny and biting but without crossing the line.

All the more reason you deserve huge kudos for doing the voodoo that you do so well.

No luck needed just talent which I'm afraid I have precious little of when it comes to wine blogging. Still, I am having fun with it but rest assured I'll be leaving the comedy up to you and the insightful articles in the capable hands of STEVE!

I have to take exception to the haircuts, Ron. I've been researching this very subject for my M.W. and it is obvious that men in the wine biz over age 50 do not go to a Barbour. Their wives do the deed (and in the case of Mittites, second-person plural present active imperative wives take turns). Of course, this does not apply to all men over 50, only the ones with hair.

Charlie's dogs have often confused the people at CGCW, when blind tasting Sauvignon Blanc, that is...

"Buehler’s Ferret’s Day Off" G-R-O-A-N. But you made up for it with the Robitussin crack (God, I miss that stuff!!!).

Finally, I want to clear up that none of my writers "phone in" their columns. They either email them or they make use of our telepathy software, the same one that we use for our so-called blind taatings.

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After 19 years as a Sommelier in Los Angeles, twice named Sommelier of the Year by the Southern California Restaurant Writers' Association, I moved to Sonoma County to explore the other aspects of the wine business. I've spent, OK wasted, 35 years learning about and teaching about and swallowing wine. I am also a judge at the Sonoma Harvest Fair, San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition and the San Francisco International Wine Competition--so I can spit like a rabid llama. I know more about wine than David Sedaris and I'm funnier than James Laube. Stay tuned for an informed but jaded view of everything wine and everything else.

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